


I Can Make You Famous on Instagram

by YinAndYangOnIce



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, SO, i briefly mention Liam bc I hate when he doesn't show up, it's not really voyeurism, niall's just bad at judgement and takes a pic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 22:25:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1958394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YinAndYangOnIce/pseuds/YinAndYangOnIce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Um, wow,” Louis said, eyes wide and looking thoroughly impressed. “You just created an internet meme, way to go.”</p>
<p>or the one where Niall posts a picture of the hot guy on the subway to Tumblr and it gets 35,000 notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can Make You Famous on Instagram

Niall hadn’t even really planned to get anything out of that stupid picture. He didn’t even think he would do anything with it once he took it, in fact, he’d already taken the picture before he was even aware what he was doing. He’d literally looked down and his phone was poised in his hand, arm outstretched and thumb hovering over the button, without him ever even telling his body to move at all.   
   
And even then, he had had a moment of pause before finally taking the shot, like, what the hell was he even doing taking this picture? He’d seen hot guys before, many of them, on and off of the internet, this wasn’t the first hot guy he’d seen and it wouldn’t be the last. But still.  
   
There was something about this one. Something about the lines of his body, which was what had drawn Niall’s eye to him in the first place. He was wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, showing off an impressive and beautiful collection of tattoos up and down his arms, which were muscular but not bulging, which was how Niall tended to like them. His shoulders and chest were broad until they slimmed down into a narrow, tiny waist, which then went on to long legs, which were wrapped in wonderfully tight black jeans. But all that aside, Niall wasn’t one to whip his phone out and snap candid shots of some guy he didn’t even know because he had a banging body.

It was when he turned around, almost perfectly in sync with when Niall’s eyes had dropped down to the boy’s arse, startling his gaze upward in hopes he wouldn’t get caught ogling. He hadn’t been, which did him little to no good for the ogling he was about to do. 

If his body had been something, it was nothing compared to his face. His jawline was cut and angular, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass with and yet he still looked soft, gentle. His skin was darker, olive-toned, and clear, smooth as the day he was born except for the stubble lining that perfect jaw. His eyes were bright, glittering amber even from where Niall was standing, thirty feet away and nearly hooded by the jet black bangs hanging over the boy’s forehead, the rest covered by a bright red beanie. What was even more surprising (or rather, not so) was how well he could see his eyelashes, which were ridiculously long and luxurious, somehow. And those lips. 

And that’s how Niall ended up with his phone out in front of him, finger set and ready to take the picture, the blonde boy biting his lip in anticipation, all before his brain had even caught up enough to form a coherent thought. 

He inhaled sharply, flinching and pulling his arm back, just as the boy across the way looked down to check his watch.

Are you crazy? he berated himself, and boy, he really needed to get home and sleep if he was going to start acting motherly at himself. That’s what he had Harry for. You can’t take a picture of someone without permission!

But a face like that oughta be remembered, another voice, which sounded suspiciously like his roommate, Louis, told him. And besides, you’re at a subway station. Who knows if you’re ever going to see him again? Are you really going to risk the chance of never seeing that face again?

The argument made little sense, even to Niall, but regardless, he still sheepishly started raising his arm, with his phone up, and directing the camera in the direction of the boy. 

He decided to at least try and be stealthy about it, which was why he raised his arm up above his head slightly and made a dumb face, throwing up a peace sign with his other hand, like he was taking a selfie. Awesome, real smooth, Niall. You could've just been pretending to check a text, but noooo. 

Whatever, too late now, he reasoned, letting his finger drop and snap the picture, just as a guy in a smart-looking business suit walked right in front of the shot. Shit.

Niall waited until the guy had finished walking by until he tried again, this time changing the position of his arm as to get a better angle at the boy he was sort of stalking. And at just that moment, a subway docked on the tracks behind him and a crowd rushed forth from behind, throwing him off of his balance. God damn it. 

When he got back into position, he realized, in horror, that the other boy was walking away. Towards a subway. In other words, away from Niall and his camera and possibly out of his life forever. 

And Niall was actually about to follow him when he heard the final call over the loudspeaker for his own subway home and he realized with dismay that he needed to go now or he was going to miss the last tube in his direction for the night and would have to have Harry come pick him up, again. 

So he pocketed his phone reluctantly and scurried across the platform towards his usual gate, merging with the bustling crowd as it swarmed the entrance to the subway and got on. He plunked himself down in a seat, dropping his backpack at his feet miserably. 

Just like this wasn’t his first and last encounter with a hot guy who he’d probably never see again, it also wasn’t his first and last time imagining going out and creating some life with a hot person in public. He had once imagined having kids with the hot barista at Starbucks while he was supposed to be studying for finals, but to be fair, he was really tired and frazzled that day, and he knew that he wasn’t the only one who had done that. 

Now, though, he was brought back to reality and that reality was that he was painfully single and alone, headed back to the apartment that he shared with his roommates, Harry and Louis, who were desperately, disgustingly in love with each other and not at all bashful about it. 

The doors to the subway slid shut and the guy on the loudspeaker ran through the safety protocol and Niall sighed. He glanced up as he felt them start to move, leaving the station, and had to swallow back his gasp. 

He was there.   
 Somehow, hot tattoo guy was on his subway, leaning against the pole literally three feet away, fiddling around on his phone. 

Now’s my chance, Niall thought, scrambling to take out his phone, this time deciding to pretend to text somebody rather than taking the selfie approach. He powered up his camera, eyes fixed exclusively on the phone as to not arouse suspicion and shit. This guy was gorgeous from afar, there was no doubt about that, but there were no words to describe what he was from so up close. 

He waited until the boy looked up just the slightest bit, glancing at the window of the metro to take the picture, so he could capture his lovely profile and all of those long, long eyelashes, and nearly jumped out of his seat when his phone made the synthetic, tinny, little shutter noise. He panicked, immediately making an absolutely ridiculous face in the direction of his phone when he noticed several pairs of eyes, including the molten whiskey ones of the boy he was trying to pap, turned to him. Most people just rolled their eyes and turned away, but the boy leaning against the pole, as Niall watched him on his phone’s screen, gave the tiniest little smirk before turning back to his phone. 

Niall’s face was red for the rest of the ride, well after hot, mysterious, tattoo boy got off at his stop, and only then would he open his phone to glance at the picture he’d taken.

Jesus, did this kid even know what a candid was? It was like he was a fucking model who’d decided to have an impromptu shoot on the subway. Maybe he was a model. That would explain a lot of things.

At the very least, it would diminish Niall’s questioning his own moral conscience. It’s not technically immoral to take pictures of someone whose job it is to be photographed, right? 

Or something.

~ ~ ~

The executive decision he made to upload that picture to Tumblr wasn’t so much executive or a decision as much as it was a dumb impulse that for some reason he decided to indulge. 

He was mostly just on Tumblr for the shits and giggles and occasional Derby updates, and he actually had a pretty sizable amount of followers for literally doing nothing at all except reblogging pictures of cats wearing costumes and dumb puns. Most of them had come from this one joke he’d made that had gotten a lot of notes, and he mostly felt bad for all of them because they were probably following him expecting some comedy genius and every day were getting sorely disappointed. 

Basically, what had happened was that he remembered that one series of pictures that had been going around for a little while, the one with the impossibly hot doctor and the policeman, who were just doing their jobs and being incredibly attractive while doing it. And he always saw those stupid hipster posts with the ridiculously good-looking people for no reason and he figured it might as well join the fray, not even for notes or anything, just for the irony.   
 So he posted the picture of the boy on the subway, at the last minute adding the caption “Found this hot tamale on the subway today, haven’t yet recovered.” He originally thought to put “Angel on the subway” but, while this was entirely true, he felt like it was maybe a little heavy for something that was supposed to be a joke.

Unfortunately, and completely predictably Niall, it stopped being a joke very quickly.

It started with Louis barreling into his room the next morning, waking him from a dream already fading away from behind his eyelids (but he was sure it involved buffalo wings and angels for some reason,) laptop in hand and Tumblr open on his screen.

“Who is this?!” Louis demanded, far too quickly and loudly for Niall’s still foggy brain to comprehend. 

Louis had been introduced to the idea of Tumblr by Niall and finally coaxed into getting one by Harry, and when he wasn’t asking Niall every few days how the fuck it works, he was demonstrating that he knew exactly how it worked by reblogging pictures of half-naked (at the very least) people and any other random shit he could find. He also made a habit of, whenever he found anything that he found particularly funny, barging into Niall’s bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom that one (and only once) time so that he could show it to him. Usually, it did make him laugh, but other times, not so much.

“What the hell are you on about, Lou?” Niall groaned, rolling over just enough so that he was facing Louis, who was still sticking his computer in Niall’s face. He ignored whatever was in the middle of the screen and instead looked at the time in the top corner. “It’s not even eight, yet, bro. Can’t the cat picture wait?”

“Trust me, this is no cat picture, mister,” Louis said, the trademark smirked painted into his voice waking Niall up a little bit, because usually that tone meant something less than good for him. “Although, I did find this picture of a cat with a helmet carved out of watermelon that was pretty spectacular, remind me to show you that later.”

“Louis,” Niall whined. “Sleep.”

“You can sleep after you tell me who this gorgeous slice of stud muffin is and where I can find him,” Louis said, tapping his screen again.   
 Niall huffed, finally leaning up on his elbow so that he was level with the laptop and letting his eyes adjust to the colors and shapes on the screen. When everything came into clarity, he was greeted with the picture he’d put up of the hot boy from the day before.

“Oh, him?” Niall said, yawning. “He’s just some guy I saw on the tube yesterday, I don’t know who he is.”

“You don’t know?!” Louis squawked, throwing himself onto the empty space next to Niall (or rather, shoving him over so there was more space for him.) “He didn’t even give you a name? Or a phone number?”

“First of all, you need to heel, you have a perfectly good boyfriend waiting for you in the other room,” Niall said, nodding his head towards the wall his room shared with Harry and Louis’s. “And secondly-“

And as if on cue, Harry walked into the room, computer in hand, in nothing but his briefs and a toothbrush hanging from his lips. “Hey, Ni, who’s this bloke that you’ve got a picture of?”

Niall groaned again, louder, falling back onto his bed. “What the hell, why is this so important right now? I just saw him on the subway, thought he was gorgeous, and snapped a pic. Whatever.”

“I cannot believe your first impulse was to take a picture instead of going over and chatting him up,” Louis said, sounding extremely disappointed, like a mother might. “If you’re shagging him, you can take as many pictures as you want!”

“Consensually,” Harry chimed in and Niall just rolled his eyes. “But Ni, I don’t suppose you got his number or anything?”

Niall shook his head. “No, I didn’t even talk to him.”  
 “Shame,” Harry said, pouting a bit. “I would’ve liked to ask him to model for me.” Harry himself was a photography major and actually used his Tumblr for something useful, like sharing his photos and portfolios. He also did post a lot of pictures of cats, though. 

“You must be proud though, mate, this picture is fucking everywhere,” Louis said, once again glued to the image on his screen. “Nearly thirty-five thousand notes in less than twenty-four hours.”

And just like that, the drowsiness that had started to melt back into Niall’s limbs evaporated instantly. He sat bolt upright, startling both Louis and Harry as he snatched the older boy’s computer from his hands. 

“Thirty-five what?!” he screeched, scrolling down to the bottom of the post and sure enough, underneath about a dozen comments proclaiming how ludicrously hot this guy was, the note counter read 33,927 notes. Thirty-three thousand, nine hundred and twenty-seven people had liked and/or reblogged that picture since he’d gone to bed last night. 

He had just shared this poor, random, hot boy’s picture with the entire internet and he had no idea about it.  
 “Mate, what’s wrong?” Louis asked, moving over so he could look over Niall’s shoulder at the screen. 

But Niall wasn’t listening, he was already scrolling to the top of the dashboard (during which he saw the same picture at least twice more) and logging out of Louis’s account.

“Hey! Niall, what the fuck, mate? I can never remember my password for that thing!” Louis snapped, watching in dismay as Niall started logging into his own account.

“Don’t worry, Lou, I know it,” Harry muttered, moving over and sitting down on Niall’s other side, watching him type in his own password and hit enter. Louis sent him a fond look over Niall’s head, which was cut short when Niall let out a squeal of horror.

“Shit, mate,” Harry breathed, staring past Niall’s ear at the screen, which told him that he had over one-hundred private messages waiting for him in his inbox. 

Niall, with a trembling hand, clicked on the little envelope icon and nearly let out another squeak when he was immediately barraged with nearly the same message over and over again.

“Oh my GOD who is that gorgeous guy??!?!!?!”

“McDreamy more like McFuckMe”

“WHO IS THAT GUY OH MY GOD” 

“i think i’m pregnant i might be pregnant”

“I hope your subway hit a lot of bumps so you could accidentally fall over and suck his dick”

“What has my life come to that my goal right now is to be that pole”

“HOW ARE THERE PEOPLE THAT HOT ON THIS PLANET”

“PLEASE TELL ME YOU FUCKED HIM”

“DID YOU SUCK HIS COCK”

“JESUS HE’S SO FINE”

“GIVE ME HIS ADDRESS GIVE ME HIS NAME I’LL FIND HIM”

Niall slammed the computer shut, running his hands down his burning face. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“Um, wow,” Louis said, eyes wide and looking thoroughly impressed. “You just created an internet meme, way to go.”

“This can’t be happening,” Niall moaned. “It was meant to be a joke.”

“You don’t joke about schlong like that,” Louis said sagely, waving a hand over the closed lid of his laptop like it was a treasure map. “That shit’s never a joke.”

“So I take your reaction to mean that you didn’t ask permission to use this young man’s photograph,” Harry said, in that motherly tone he usually used when someone put an empty milk carton back in the fridge or he caught Niall watching WWE (“It’s so violent, why would their mothers let them do this for a living?”.) Niall bent his head until his forehead knocked against the computer. “Niall.”

“I didn’t think this would happen!” Niall said guiltily, springing back up and grabbing tufts of dyed blonde hair in his fingers. “I have, like, maybe eight hundred followers! I didn’t think it would escalate like this!”

“You gotta take it down,” Harry said. “It’s only fair.”

“Yeah, but what’s the point now?” Louis said. “It’s already circulating and shit, the damage is already done. And besides, with a face like that, if you weren’t the first person to take this picture, someone else would’ve been.”

Niall was sure that that had been meant to be comforting, but it failed miserably. “Oh God, I’m a predator. This poor guy has no idea!”

“Look, just go up, take it down, and keep it from getting any worse,” Harry said, nudging the laptop closer to Niall’s hand, who yanked it back as if it might burn him. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Okay, but, like, can you send me that pic?” Louis asked, earning himself a glare from Niall and Harry. “What? A face like that deserves to be remembered. And besides, Harold, don’t even act like you don’t have those candids of my arse by the hundreds on your phone.” Harry had the decency to at least turn a little pink. After that, he and Louis stood up, patting his back and promising him breakfast before leaving the room, Louis trying to contain his giggles and Harry trying to look a little like he disapproved of it. 

Niall sighed, turning back to the laptop and opening it, frowning when the first thing that popped up when the page refreshed was the picture again, along with fifteen new messages. When he clicked on the icon, it was more of the same.

“Angels ride subways?”

“Please tell me you know where I can find this kid.”

He scrolled down the dozens on messages, turning steadily redder as he skimmed through them. He let out an audible whimper when he found one that read “New spank bank material right here, thanks!” 

He started deleting all of them, knowing that it was probably fruitless and he would be getting messages like this for a long time. 

They were all pretty much the same; some grosser or sweeter than others, but mostly it was all lust-induced madness. Most of these messages were from people who had sent them anonymously as well, a luxury he’d denied the subject of his picture, he realized shamefully, so his eyes were more easily drawn to the ones with icons and names all their own.

Which is why he was able to find the message that full-on stopped his heart.  
 The sender hadn’t sent it anonymously, so his username, “niazkilam”, was visible, as well as his icon, which was small but Niall was more or less certain was a picture of a boy with his head bent and a tattooed arm draped over his shoulder. But he only caught a glimpse of the icon before he saw the message.

“um, hi, that picture that you put up? of the guy on the subway? that’s me, i’m pretty sure.”

Fuck.

Niall slammed the computer shut again, as if getting the words out of his sight would take them out of existence.   
 He hadn’t even entertained the possibility that the boy who he’d taken a picture of would have a Tumblr of his own and would see the picture. He was just worried about the poor kid’s honor, which he’d soiled without a second thought. He hadn’t even thought that there might be a confrontation.

But he owed this kid an explanation, and at the very least an apology, so he reopened the computer and clicked on the message.

He sat in front of the screen for maybe ten minutes, typing and erasing the message over and over again until he finally came up with something.

“JESUS OH MY GOD I’M SO SO SO SORRY I WILL TAKE IT DOWN RIGHT NOW I PROMISE I CAN’T APOLOGIZE ENOUGH IT WAS JUST A JOKE WELL IT WASN’T REALLY LIKE THE PART WITH YOU THAT WASN’T A JOKE YOU REALLY ARE A HOT TAMALE OR WHATEVER LIKE SO MUCH BUT I PUT THE PICTURE UP AS A JOKE I DIDN’T EXPECT IT TO BLOW UP LIKE IT DID HONESTLY YOU WERE JUST THERE AND REALLY REALLY HOT AND IT JUST HAPPENED I’M SO SORRY I PROMISE I’LL TAKE IT DOWN.”

It was equal parts ashamed and pathetic, and he knew the caps was a little spastic, but to be honest, he wasn’t in much of a position to save face, even if it was in front of this ridiculously fine specimen of a human being. The only position he was in was to grovel.

He clicked send before going onto his page and deleting the photo, just like he promised, and after that he closed the computer a third time, this time more gently, and stood up, leaving the computer and the whole mess behind, at least until he finished breakfast.

~ ~ ~

Even though he’d apologized, which was more than he’d thought he’d be able to do, considering he didn’t even expect to be confronted with the subject of his photograph, and the photo was gone, he couldn’t get rid of the sinking, heavy feeling in his gut.

He was ashamed and embarrassed, his impulses having gotten the better of him again, and not only that, he’d probably scared a nice, young, gentleman off of using public transportation ever again.

When he’d finished forcing down the last of his eggs, which tasted bitter and acidic to him and did nothing for his guilt-induced nausea, he took his mug of coffee back into his room and powered up his own computer, hoping that doing some work would distract him. 

~ ~ ~

It wasn’t like Niall was totally unfamiliar with the niggling gravitational pull of Tumblr while he was trying to do his homework, but it had never been this strong before. He had to look up the name of the piece that he was supposed to download and learn for his piano class four times before he finally gave up and clicked the shortcut on his browser that brought him to the site, logging back in with anticipation and dread buzzing under his skin like insects.

He had over thirty new messages and when he clicked into his inbox, he saw that most of them were imploring him as to why he’d taken down the picture. He decided to take some responsibility for himself and hit “Reply” on the first one that asked.

“Okay so right I took that picture and put it up as a joke here, mostly for my own enjoyment and the irony and then I woke up this morning and there were over 30k notes of this poor guy I’d never met before and who definitely DID NOT give me permission to take that picture and it just exploded in a way I didn’t expect it to, so I had to take it down. Not to mention the guy who the picture was of just so happened to have a Tumblr and found the picture himself, so that was pretty humiliating. Long story short, the picture’s gone. Sorry.”

He sighed, going back into his inbox and starting to delete the new messages. 

He had only gone through a few when a familiar name and icon appeared. “niazkilam” has responded. 

“hey it’s cool mate, like i don’t really care if i’m honest, it’s kind of funny and sort of flattering, i guess. not every day you get called a hot tamale aha pretty good for the ego, i’d say ;) but i do appreciate your apology mate.”

Niall was typing out a response before he could think better of it.

“Oh god you have no idea how embarrassed I am like I didn’t mean for that to happen and I was already on my way to delete it when I got your message. I really really feel bad.”

He pressed “Send” and then, despite himself and his better judgment telling him to just let it end there, sat there, refreshing the page over and over until he got another message. When the little red blip that announced a new message appeared, he hit the trackpad with far more force than necessary. 

He deflated when he realized that the new messages were just more people whining about the picture being gone, some asking for a copy to call their own, and others asking him for the guy’s URL, not that it was common knowledge that he had a Tumblr account. He responded to those swiftly.

“I really think I’ve exposed this guy enough. So no. No URL”

Out of curiosity (and that safe, little bit of suspicion,) Niall thought to look up this guy’s blog and find out if it was legitimate, that he wasn’t messaging some crazy schmuck. He went back into his messages and found the note from the (alleged) boy and clicked the URL, waiting for the page to load.

The layout was simple, the user hadn’t really cared much as to how fancy it was, just a few columns against a background of a colorful, graffitied wall. A lot of the posts were pictures, but, Niall noticed, the majority of it was music and sound bytes he’d shared. 

He glanced at the sidebar and realized immediately that this was in fact the boy on the subway, his icon had been enlarged and he could clearly see that that was the same face he wanted to preserve in his memory. The boy’s head was bent down, clearly meant to be a dramatic shot, but he would remember those eyelashes anywhere.

Just to be safe, he scrolled down to the links under his picture, to one that was marked “Me” and clicked on it. Sure enough, the first picture that popped up was a picture of the boy he’d seen, his hair styled up into a quiff and with a goofy smile on his face, sticking his tongue out at the camera. He had his arm around a boy with big, brown eyes and swooped up hair, who had his arm around a girl, hand low on her waist, with long, brown hair and a Hollywood smile.

Apparently, everyone this kid knew was gorgeous. Figures. Despite the undeniable attractiveness of the two other people in the photo, Niall was still drawn to the boy he’d taken the initial picture of. 

He scrolled through the boy’s “me” tag a little more, probably a lot longer than he needed to to prove what he already knew; that the kid in his inbox was, without a doubt, the boy he’d seen at the station the day before. After he felt like he had looked all he deserved, he returned to the site’s home page. 

With a renewed vigor, he refreshed the page again and once again found that he had new messages (this was the most action his Tumblr had seen ever.) He opened his inbox, finding among the anonymous messages a reply from “niazkilam.”

“hey, don’t worry bro, you’re already forgiven :) but i do have to ask that you won’t like do that again right? with someone else? becuz i don’t really care but others might you know?”

Niall felt himself flush so fast that he actually felt a little light-headed. Great, now the guy didn’t only think he was a voyeur and a creep, he was worried he would become a serial voyeur. When he wished yesterday that he would have the chance to see that guy again, this wasn’t what he had in mind.

“Oh god no never, I have 300% learned my lesson. Like I have never done anything like that before and didn’t ever plan on it. Like I don’t even know what made me do it like you were just there and so so gorgeous and I kind of acted without thinking, you know? didn’t really want to forget you”

That was probably a little too forward, especially when directed at a guy who probably felt really, really violated, but Niall had nothing to lose at this point, and he figured that, at the very least, the other guy should have a totally honest explanation and a boost to his self-esteem. 

He refreshed the page over and over, not even bothering with the messages whose senders’ icons he didn’t recognize, heart fluttering in his chest as he waited for a reply. 

After several minutes, it occurred to him that at any point, this guy could just block him and never speak to him again, which he had the full and exercisable right to do, and Niall had just started panicking about it when he got a reply.

“Oh wow. thanks I guess xx :) that’s really nice of you, mate. and not that i’m condoning taking pictures of strangers or anything, but it’s sort of funny that you were taking pictures of me when there was that really fit blonde bloke right across from me.”

Niall paused, racking his brain for any other fit guy that had been on the subway with them, but nothing came to mind. To be completely fair, he only had eyes for one person on the tube that day. He hit “Reply.”

“Hey, I wasn’t taking PICTURES, it was only one. Picture. Singular. I swear. And what blonde bloke? I don’t remember him.” He was about to press send when he decided that he might as well go for charming and creepy, if he could manage it. “Yours was the only face I remembered ;)”

He only had to wait a few minutes for a reply this time.

“Clearly ;) and really? hard to miss, I thought, he had this blonde hair, probably not natural but not in a bad way either, just blonde and kind of brownish at the bottom? oh and he had on this ridiculous jumper with a duck on the front of it.”

Niall felt himself freeze, hand unconsciously lifting up to twirl through his messy, blonde hair a the same time his eyes traveled to the floor, where he’d haphazardly thrown his jumper from the day before because he’d been too lazy to put it in the hamper. The duck that was the reason Louis threatened to burn that sweater every time he wore it (including yesterday) stared back at him.

No way.

There was a lot to process about the whole ordeal right now, but for some reason the thing his brain had decided to start on was that Louis was right, he shouldn’t wear that stupid sweater out on the off chance that some hot guy might see him in it. 

But besides that, this super cute guy who he’d just recently discovered was also super nice and super chill and had a really good taste in music as well (he had reblogged a song by The Eagles) thought he was fit. Wow.

“Oh um. Oh yeah, him. That, uh. That was me.”

He sent the message, realizing only too late that this guy might not even believe him, might think that he’s still just trying to be a creep and telling him that he’s the fit guy he saw so that maybe they could meet up or something? And would he even still think he was hot after realizing that the fit guy from the tube and the guy who had accidentally turned him into a hipster post were one and the same?

The steady stream of messages had slowed ever so slightly at this point, but now, when he checked his inbox, he found himself less anxious to find one from “niazkilam” waiting for him. But he still checked anyway, and within a few minutes there was a response.

“Come off it. Seriously?”

Honesty hadn’t completely fucked him yet, so why not?

“Uh, yeah. I mean, I think so.” Niall stopped, hands hovering over the keys, and then he slid off the bed and grabbed the now-wrinkled jumper from off of the floor. He turned on his webcam and took a picture, making sure that his face was out of the frame, partly because he thought the suspense of it all was cool and he wasn’t totally sure about this yet, but mostly because he was still really bright red and flushed from the embarrassment. 

He pasted the picture onto the message, actually smiling to himself with the absurdity of all of this. “Is this the ridiculous duck jumper?”

He sent the message and waited, this time checking Facebook and Twitter and other shit while he waited to distract himself from the nervousness. He didn’t retain anything that he saw and by the time he refreshed the page and saw a new message was in his inbox, he discovered that he had just been staring at the wall most of the time.

This time, there were two messages.

“Holy shit. Yeah that’s definitely it! And no offense, mate, but it is kinda ridiculous. In a cute way though I guess.”

“WAIT A MINUTE SO WHEN YOU TOOK THAT SELFIE WAS THAT WHEN YOU HOLY SHIT”

Niall grimaced before entering a response. 

“Uh yeah that was when. I’m so fucking sorry mate like I know I already apologized but knowing that you know what my face looks like makes me feel even worse.”

The response came quickly.

“hey, mate, like i said, already over it really. and i hope you don’t mind, but what’s your name?”

That surprised Niall a little bit, but he answered all the same.

“Niall”

Niall almost sent it like that, just his name, because he literally had no idea what else to say. But for whatever reason, he looked into his webcam and snapped a picture of himself, smiling at the lens, which he then attached to the message before sending it. 

The responses that came surprised him even more than the last, and they left him with his heart in his throat.

“holy shit it really is you.”

“hi Niall :) i’m Zayn. and were you going home on the subway? i mean like do you live in london or whatever becuz like this might sound so totally dumb and naive and stupid of me becuz like i still have no idea if you’re not a creepy stalker or anything like no offense i totally want to give you the benefit of the doubt and all but still but anyway yeah this might sound dumb but if you’re nearby do you wanna maybe grab a coffee or something? god this sounds so ridiculous and stupid and trust me i don’t ask people out over tumblr like EVER okay but i REALLY wanted to ask you out on the subway yesterday becuz i saw you in the station and i immediately thought you were really attractive but i chickened out and kinda regretted it and now it’s kinda like i have a second chance and it’s everything my mum made me promise i’d never do on the internet but you know. god i’m rambling sorry i just you know. coffee?”

Niall’s mouth was hanging open for the entire message and his tongue felt dry by the time he was through reading it through the second time. And the third, and the fourth. He typed his reply with shaking hands, pulsating in time with his heartbeat. 

“okay wow um first of all, yes completely to the coffee. And yes to living in London but. Absolutely will go to coffee with you. We can even make it somewhere bright and crowded with tons of witnesses so that you feel safe because I completely understand you not trusting me yet. I wouldn’t. But yes omg yes.”

Jesus, please calm down, he didn’t propose, he told himself, but he couldn’t help it, grabbing a pillow and wrapping his arms around it, stuffing his face in to muffle the excited, cackling laughter. 

When he looked back up at his computer, he noticed before he even clicked on the new message that he had a little notification waiting for him.

“niazkilam started following you.”

He grinned, clicking on the message. 

“Awesome :) xx so Friday, stalker boy?”

~ ~ ~

As Niall blinked himself into consciousness, he quickly became aware of a feeling on the back of his neck, tiny, soft, taps there and he realized with a smile what it was, letting his hand fall on the warm weight around his middle as he turned around and found the boy from the subway pressing butterfly kisses on his skin. 

“Good morning, stalker boy,” his voice was deep and sleep-riddled and Niall wished he felt less endeared than he was.

“Zayn, seriously, it’s been a year, you have to stop calling me that,” he grumbled, leaning back to catch his boyfriend’s lips with his own. 

“Never,” Zayn replied, tightening his grip and pulling Niall back against his chest and the blonde could feel his boyfriend’s smirk pressed into his shoulder. 

“Oh, yeah, how would you like it if I called you that?” Niall said, still too sleepy to come up with an appropriate comeback.

He felt Zayn’s chest rumble with a chuckle as he grunted. “You are what you eat, I suppose.”

Niall choked, trying to wriggle his way out of Zayn’s grip and away until he’d rolled over and was facing him, giggling the whole way. “That’s sick, mate.”

“You weren’t complaining,” Zayn said, reaching out and wrapping himself around Niall again, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “And neither was I.”

Niall smiled, despite himself, at the man lying in front of him, the boy from the subway looking more beautiful than ever, nude and sleepy and happy, lying in his bed. Without saying a word, Niall reached behind his head and grabbed his phone, holding it out and opening the camera.

“What are you doing?” Zayn said.

“Shush, just smile,” Niall replied, beaming when Zayn mustered up a sleepy smile. Niall snapped the picture, then immediately opened Tumblr.

“Found this hot tamale in my bed this morning. Still haven’t recovered.”


End file.
